Revelation and Contention
by EnlightenedSkye
Summary: In the fall of 1925, a tragic even befalls the Crabtree family. [Passing mentions of Gemily, Jilliam, and Rose/Felix. Part of the Common Life AU series. Trigger warnings for death]


A/N: First of all, let me apologize for what I'm about to do to your emotions. I recently read that diphtheria was a pretty consistent threat towards children until the mid twentieth century. The potential for faulty production of antitoxin was ever present. I worked in healthcare for two years as a nurse's assistant before leaving for university, and twice saw cases of this awful disease. I am eternally grateful that medicine has progressed so that we do not need to worry about such things. Please, dear readers, if you have children, vaccinate them. Alright, now I'm off my soapbox.

Pardon the Gatsby references, but it was published during that year and I could just see Rose enjoying it. Perhaps I'm engaging in a bit of wishful thinking by letting Mrs. Dewar still be alive, but she was one of my favorite minor characters from the previous season.

Fear not, for there will be resolution for the events of this story, including a happy announcement and the return of a familiar face. It was always my intention to put Rose and Felix together, but I'm not too sure how I'm doing on making people ship OCs. Part of my AU cycle (which I've been thinking should be given a name...hit me up if you have a suggestion), set in the late fall of 1925. Triggers for death in the family. Unbetaed as usual. (And to my fellow observant readers...have a wonderful Rosh Hashanah!)

 **Revelation and Contention**

Mere moments before the sun would dip below the horizon and the day shift constable would make his final loop around the block, a strapping young undergrad stepped off his streetcar. Dressed to the nines in a navy chino suit, he carried with him an extra spring with every step. Before he left his home, he'd been careful to comb his hair and secure his lapels just so, for he knew that any stray thread out of place might betray his nervousness. But he _wasn't_ nervous. He really wasn't.

The truth was that whatever conspired tonight would have the potential to change the rest of his life for the better. That was why he'd purchased half a dozen long stemmed red blooms from his neighborhood florist and wrapped them carefully in his mother's wax paper before making the trek uptown.

It was late in the afternoon, and the men of Toronto were leaving their places of work and making their way back home to their families. He envied them, for his day had been a flurry of lectures and coursework. Nevertheless, he needed all the challenge he could get if he was to be the finest lawman in the province. His father had tried his hardest to convince him against the profession, but Felix Murdoch wasn't one to back down from a challenge.

Bel Air Books had remained a steadfast establishment in this neighborhood for years, so he wasn't surprised to see a trickle of customers leaving the building as he entered, their purchases tied up with hand cut bits of twine. He had often made use of the services here to procure books for his classes at Trinity College, but he had come this evening with a decidedly different motive.

His best girl leaned over a shelf behind the counter, as was her wont, and she would appear to any passersby that she was anticipating their requests. However, a second glance could discern that her eyes were downcast and a thin novel was hidden just out of sight. Heaven knew what she was reading; some days it was an informative volume, or swooning prose, or salacious romances. Whatever it was, it was clear why she'd chosen to work here over all the locations in the city hiring women today; it was if the job had been tailor made for her.

"Excuse me, miss," Felix muttered politely, affecting a gruff tone.

The clerk started, but her eyes never left the page. "The lady of the house is not available," she said idilly, referring to the owner of the establishment, elderly Mrs. Dewar.

"Very apt of you to assume I am after her company, but I would wager to say that she isn't my type," he replied wryly, causing her to look up for the first time.

"Felix!" She cried, stepping out from behind the counter and embracing him. As her arms came up to wrap around his neck, he heard the tell tale sign of a leather bound book hitting the floor.

He laughed and nuzzled her cheek, depositing a quick kiss next to her ear. "Why, Rose Crabtree, if I wasn't mistaken, I would say that you were happy to see me!"

The woman disengaged from her paramour and ran her hands over her drop waisted frock, suddenly very conscious that they were still in public. Memories of their previous evening of debauchery came rushing back to her. "I cannot believe you talked me into dancing atop that table," she rebuked, her voice a touch under audible, "I'm never going down to the docks with you again."

He had to smirk at that, remembering how her cheeks had flushed as she'd kicked up her heels and mimicked the high stepping dances performed in the American moving pictures. The trumpets were wailing, the piano player was tickling the ivories, and all had been right with the world. That was, until the constabulary had barged in, hearing of a raucous party held in an abandoned warehouse by a university fraternity and deciding to investigate.

They'd mostly been able to hide their involvement in the ordeal from their parents, even though Rose's mother had reportedly taken note of her disheveled appearance upon her arrival at home and chuckled to herself. "Hush now. One day this blasted prohibition will be over, and we will once again be able to indulge to our heart's content."

"Blasted?" She repeated, affecting a faint British accent. "You've been spending too much time with the men at the station house."

The student heaved a massive sigh and leaned against the counter, as if whatever he was about to impart upon her carried some weight of emotion. "If I'm to pass the bar and become a criminal defender, I've got to understand the inner workings of the law. You know as well as I."

She took notice of the flowers he was carrying and took the bundle into her arms, softly cooing about how lovely they were. "I do. I just wish you'd be careful. Papa has told me some of the most frightful stories-"

"And you don't think mine has?" Felix was referring to, of course, Inspector William Murdoch. His father had had an illustrious career in law enforcement and was, at the present, preparing to retire with full honors. On the oft chance you could catch him with a steaming mug of tea and a discarded scientific text in his lap, he could spin a yarn wider than Lake Ontario.

The bell attached to the door jingled, and Rose seized the opportunity to get in one last verbal barb before rushing off the attend to her customer: "You and your ambitions."

He had to smile at that, for she was once again discounting her own. Upon graduating secondary school, Rose had chosen not to attend university. Her passion lay with modern literature, and not the stuffy old classics they often had to transcribe by hand. One day, she would become a published author, just like her father. Nevertheless, everyone had to start somewhere, and that was how the second oldest Crabtree daughter found herself working the bookstore circuit at the tender age of nineteen.

In the late fall of 1925, Felix Murdoch was several months older than she and a shade under twenty. He'd begun his professional career as a gadabout youth, but as the weeks passed and he began to take notice of the happy married couples in his midst, he'd elected to change that.

He and Rose had been courting formally for just under three years. It was the obvious choice; they were around the same age, and their families great friends. But their relationship transcended that. No matter what they happened to be up to, whether napping under the trees of the city's park or sneaking in a drink when they parents happened to be looking the other way, everything just seemed _natural_. It wasn't too long before the young man was forced to admit to himself that he had fallen in love.

Felix had never once considered the possibility of such an occurrence; he thought himself average in stature and appearance, and his voice was slightly effeminate. He had also suffered an injury in his early childhood that had caused his left leg to grow twisted and shriveled. Even now, his leg brace was hidden as best as he could under his trousers. After so many years of practice, his limp was barely noticeable. Still, he often felt that his perceived ineptitudes were present for all to see. That didn't make much of a difference to Rose. She often told him how handsome she thought he was, how kind and how well spoken. She took his arm and helped him when walking became strenuous across long distances, and never once complained when he lagged behind. It never once escaped him how lucky he was to be in his situation; a disabled former orphan could ask for nothing better.

From the beginning, his plans for the evening had been grandiose. An opulently catered dinner would turn into moonlit walk along the beach, where he would at long last make an honest woman of Rose Crabtree. However, when he realized how limited his budget was as a university student and just how much he'd already spent on the wedding ring, he'd downgraded to a quick snack at Minnie's Tea Room followed by a stroll around the neighborhood.

There was one major variable missing from his equation, and that was the foregoing consent of their elders. He knew that if he were to broach the subject of marriage to his parents, his father would say that he should wait, his mother would disagree, saying how romantic the notion seemed, and then the two would bicker like children. In Felix's opinion, William had no place to criticize his choice to marry early. His situation wasn't typical, and the older man's hadn't been either.

But they would manage, just the two of them, like they always had. He could see where married life might take them, to an apartment on the outskirts of campus. There they'd grow old together, and no one would have the right to deride them. Let the previous generation spend their days hiding behind propriety; Felix would be having none of the usual methods.

By now Rose had finished with her customer, who had come in to request a specialized volume that they would have to order ahead of time, and had moved off to the back room to answer the telephone. He could hear her voice, peaking with emotion, and then she was back between the stacks.

"I'm afraid I'll have to take a rain check on our outing, dear. That was father, and she says that Aster has taken a turn for the worse," she appeared remorseful, as if she hadn't wanted to deliver the bad news.

Immediately his expression fell. The youngest Crabtree daughter had fallen ill with diphtheria three days before after receiving a vaccination her mother had fought to procure; she was eleven, after all, and should be inoculated against illnesses common to children. The vial of antitoxin had traveled from New York City in a covered freight car, and now it seemed that either transit or poor practice had caused the vaccination to lose its beneficial properties. After the initial period of shock had run its course and a series of angry correspondences had been sent eastward, there was little the family could do but wait for the disease to take its course. Just when things were looking up for the girl, apparently progress towards recovery had ceased.

This threw a huge detour in his plans, but family certainly came first for the both of them. "Go see her, and take the flowers. Minnie's will still be around tomorrow or the next day."

She smiled then, and stood on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you. I'll call around tonight."

As she dressed for the outdoors, hurriedly tying her cloak and securing her hat about her brow, Felix fought to repress a sigh. So tonight wouldn't go as planned; few things ever did. Even so, what would a few more days of courtship be after three years of bliss?

Offering one final word of farewell, the couple took leave of her place of employment, turning the key in the lock before stepping onto the busy street.

-0-

Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children was housed in a lovely brick building, wrought with iron and surrounded by groves of lush foliage. The soft glow of electric lights reached Rose as she turned the corner, and provided her the strength to make the last final jaunt up the steps and to the front door.

Predictably, her younger sister Holly was waiting for her in the lobby. The spry seventeen year old was elegant in her every motion, with long, thin fingers that would suit her chosen occupation of secretarial study. Every afternoon for the past six weeks, she had been holed up in a basement room of Union Station, taking dictation and shorthand lessons from the women that worked for the telephone company. She still wore her hair in a waist-dusting plait, unlike her sisters, who had adopted the latest fashion and fashioned a bob out of their unruly chestnut curls. Presently, she was bent over at the waist, wringing her hands over and over again as if she was cold. When she caught sight of Rose, she straightened suddenly, and turned to approach the staircase.

When the two sisters were safely out of earshot of the workers at the front desk, Rose asked, "Has everyone arrived?"

"Yes," she replied, choosing her words carefully. "It was Auntie Julia that discovered her condition while she was on her rounds. She was quite insistent on taking Aster's case, even though it may be outside her specialty. It's a bit of a medical oddity for such a dramatic reaction to inoculation to take place. I won't pretend to know much about the subject, but that's what has been said in your absence."

Rose paused at a door on the far end of the second floor. "And Sage?"

This caused the young woman to take pause. Her partner in crime, with only eleven months of age between them, was all but unreachable in Chicago. The second youngest Crabtree daughter had always been taken in by fashion and the cosmopolitan lifestyles of the city. When Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck decided to take their immensely popular catalogue business to their first department store franchise, she'd packed her bags, immediately set on becoming a shop girl. Their parents had put up some resistance to the idea of her being so far away, but as far as any of them knew, she was quite happy and successful in securing employment. The telegraph lines across Lake Michigan, however, left a lot to be desired. It took hours for the simplest of messages to reach her boarding house in the neighborhood of Pilsen.

Holly shook her head. "No word just yet."

So mother and father had spared the expense to contact her. This had to mean that Aster was truly on the threshold of another more gracious realm. Heaving a sigh so ragged it made a rather harsh sound in her throat, Rose shouldered the door and entered the narrow hospital room.

Inside, two people were elbowing each other for prime real estate at the head of the bed. Dr. Julia Ogden, her silvery hair tied at the nape of her neck, bent over her patient with her index and middle finger on a pulse point. In her other hand, she studied a worn brass pocket watch for the time that had elapsed.

At her elbow was Violet Crabtree, twenty years old with considerable progress made towards her letters in medicine. A shiny new stethoscope dangled from her ears as she focused intently on the activities of her colleague.

"Considerably elevated," Mrs. Murdoch mumbled to her student, and observed as she proceeded to make note of that on her patient's chart. As she righted her posture, the older woman caught a glimpse of the newcomers.

Her eyes were dull, but with the kind of rapt intensity that betrayed how long she must have been at work. Julia was well past sixty, but as she aged, it was clear that she had no intention of slowing down. The delicate crow's feet at her temples relayed her concentration and good humor, while her stooped back told of countless hours at the bedside tending to the patients that needed her help the most.

"Girls," she began softly, "I'm afraid that-"

"Don't you dare," came the thinly veiled threat in the direction of the window, where a forlorn figure sat with her back to the assembly. "Don't you dare finish that sentence."

She still couldn't bring herself to gaze upon the weakened form of her baby sister. "Mother, I came as fast as I could."

Emily stood with some effort, her eyes never leaving the motor cars and taxi cabs traversing the street far below. Her gloved hands came up to her shoulders, where she proceeded to hug herself tightly. "I know you did, Rose. It's just that-"

A strained intake of air came from the bed, where it was clear that Aster was struggling for breath. The onset of her croup-like symptoms had been immediate and severe. The stridor in her lungs and tonsillar lesions made it increasingly difficult to breathe, causing air to escape from her chest in great wheezing gasps.

That was all it took for their mother to burst into tears. She was immediately attended to by the only gentleman in the room, who had taken great care to remove his suit jacket and detective's badge before entering. Over the past few years, Rose had come hyper aware to her father's emotions, including his tendency to shrink away from whatever strickened him the most.

Violet sprung into action, sliding a hand underneath her sister's swollen neck in an effort to elevate her airway. The rapid, desperate intakes continued, and a great deal of discharge began to flow from the young girl's nose.

It was then she found herself able to move once again, as if her feet had been cemented to the floor. While Sage made a beeline for her mother, enveloping her in a protective embrace, she knelt by the bedside and made a reach for the girl's hand.

The cyanotic coloring to her skin was absolutely shocking. If Aster weren't positively burning with fever, she might begin to question if she wasn't already lapsing into the throes of death. While Julia approached with a spoonful of syrup of ipecac, Rose assisted her efforts, holding open her sister's cheeks.

Swallowing must have been painful for her, but she managed to get the medicine down. Her breathing a touch calmer now, Aster blinked slowly and observed as her legs twitched with palsy. Past the clinically induced haze, did she know what was going on? She _had_ to.

Rose reached into her handbag and retrieved a slim volume of prose, one of the more recent publications to come out of the United States. She had to make an effort to anchor the family in this moment, to make a desperate reach towards something that could be described as normal. Quietly, she asked, "Do you want me to continue reading the story about Nick and Daisy, sweetheart?"

The girl's fingers tightened around her own, which she chose to take as an affirmation. Turning to the correct page and reading loudly so as to be heard above the noise of her mother's sobs, she began, "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired…"

-0-

Several hours later, Felix Murdoch found himself in one of the many gardens surrounding the hospital, pacing between lengths of hedges and hoping for the best. Rose had telephoned him from the front desk of the institution and had asked to meet with him presently. He was beginning to hope that she hadn't forgotten her request, for it was very near midnight and a frigid wind had swept up from the northeast.

The moon dodged behind a swath of clouds once more, casting an eerie glow over the earth below. He had some inkling of a notion that his was what poets would call the bewitching hour, when all things were destined to either begin or end. Shivering, he huddled himself further in the folds of his coat.

Suddenly he heard the frantic sound of footsteps coming from behind him. Turning, he was surprised to see his girl, sans cloak and hat, her face so incredibly contorted with emotion that he couldn't begin to make presumptions as to her mood.

His arms stretched out towards her out of habit, and she gratefully rushed into them. It was only when she was safely in the circle of his arms that he heard her sob, "Oh, Felix, Aster is gone!"

"What did you say?" The thought was so startling, so horrendous, that he couldn't even fathom it being true.

"She's dead. By God, she's _dead_!"

His hands found her waist and brought her in closer to his chest, allowing her salty tears to pool in the crook of his neck and on his collar. Still clasped in the fingers of his left hand was a delicately rendered velvet box, its contents long forgotten.

-0-

Long after the pertinent forms had been signed and a covered stretcher had been wheeled down to the basement, Emily bade goodnight to her husband. He had to report to the constabulary early in the morning, not for a case, but to ask for the next few days of leave. Sage had followed him, to prevent him from doing something regrettable out of his grief more than anything. She'd elected to stay behind, for there were a great deal of arrangements to be made.

She'd been at the bedside as her daughter's breathing had slowed and she'd suffocated, and had been at a loss for her inability to do anything about it. It was only after her dearest friend asked her to sign off on the certificate of loss that it finally hit her. Emily's baby, the infant last to be brought into this world, was no more.

Her face instantly became immovable as stone as her conscience warred within her. Part of her wanted to blame herself for insisting the very last of her daughters be vaccinated, but who was to know that the dose would be faulty? Anger, however righteous, was useless if not directed at the correct entity. Someone's incompetence was to blame, and the coroner intended to pursue that lead until the end.

Emily found her oldest daughter in an unused alcove on the third floor. When at last she was within earshot, Violet choked out, "I couldn't save her."

Breath all but stopped in her chest. At only three years into her education, she'd began to take personal accountability to things beyond her control. Profound sensations of guilt had surrounded her during her early years at the station house, before she'd forced herself to come to terms with the fact that sometimes fate endeavored to make itself known in ways she couldn't have possibly anticipated.

"Neither could I," she confessed, sitting beside her daughter and drawing her head down to her breast. Once she was there in a position of comfort that she hadn't experienced since childhood, Violet began to cry softly, her tears staining the bodice of her mother.

Sometimes, the only solace could arrive from a power they couldn't possibly understand. She would wait to make her peace with her creator. Now, it was all Emily Grace could do to slowly rock back and forth and contend, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away…"

 **The End**


End file.
